The Art of Style According to Infinite Coles

Style. Everyone wants it; few are born with it. Style encompasses one of the more playful aspects of human nature, as good dressers seldom happen by accident. So the question becomes not can you teach style, but how? Culture Trip’s video series The Art of Style explores.

From serving looks to mixing street and high fashion, the latest member of the Wu-Tang Clan to find success is doing so on the music industry, the catwalk, and in the pages of fashion rags. Infinite Coles is Ghostface Killah’s son, but being raised by rap royalty wasn’t all gravy. Coles, who is gay, struggled with his identity in his teen years.

By that time, Wu-Tang’s legendary debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), had been around for a decade, and each member was a star in his own right, with individual albums that garnered street cred and critical acclaim alike. But for Coles, much of the hip-hop collective’s macho dogma was a personal affront. He talks about what it was like to grow up in the Wu-Tang house, which member of the Wu-Tang clan had a profound effect on his personal evolution as he came into his own.

Coles is determined to carve out his own niche. He’s releasing music this spring, and contributed to XL Recordings’ Everything Is Recorded, a collective project orchestrated by the record label’s owner, Richard Russell, that sees Coles working with fellow emerging artists such as Sampha and Ibeyi. Coles’s résumé extends beyond music—in 2015, he and Major Lazer’s Mela Murder were cast in Gang, a short film released by Dazed in which his character is “vogueing with [Mela Murder]” and he’ll be playing what he refers to as a “gay gangsta” in the Netflix film Headless, debuting later this year. (You can also catch him grooving in the music video for Bibi Bourelly’s “Sally.”) Beyond his musical prowess, Coles has an eye for style, and he breaks down how you can dress to be your most authentic self.